Desolation
by ImpalaLove
Summary: Written for the July Prompt Exchange Challenge (hosted by Unattainable Dreams). Prompt: "Give me an out of order sign and caution tape and we can have sex practically anywhere." Set in season 3.


**Okay first of all, hello. I know it's been a while. Hope you're all doing swell! I could waste my time on explanations as to where the heck I've been, but I'd imagine you'd rather I just get to the point. So: **

**This story was written for the July Prompt Exchange Challenged hosted by the lovely Unattainable Dreams. Go check it out and send a PM if you're interested in participating. My prompt this month was: "Give me an out of order sign and caution tape and we can have sex practically anywhere."**

**And I know what you're thinking: "Oh, thank CHUCK. Look at that prompt. This MUST be a happy story for once." Ha ha ha.**

**Challenge accepted. **

**Set in season 3. Mild spoilers.**

* * *

**Desolation **

There are people dying in Phoenix, Arizona, so that's where they're going. Sometimes Sam thinks about how they follow death, and how death follows them right back. He's been thinking about it a lot more often lately, probably because of Dean's deal. Probably because all he ever thinks about now is Dean's deal. Dean's impending death. The same death they keep criss-crossing the country to find.

He pictures it like a chase scene in those old Scooby-Doo episodes Dean loves so much. Cyclical. Nonsensical. There's usually even a song in the background, just like in those montages- Dean's steady stream of classic rock filtering out through the Impala's speakers as they speed down the road toward the latest ghost or vampire or spleen-devouring-devil-adjacent-walrus. Whatever the hell it'll be this time. Sam almost wants it to be something they've never seen before, and then he immediately feels guilty. Because if they've never seen it before, it'll probably take a longer time to solve. And that'll mean more dropped bodies.

He'll settle for anything but werewolves, then. Something that at least knows its a monster. Something simple and asking to be killed.

Dean is talking.

He's been talking for a while now. One hand on the wheel, loose and easy, the other preoccupied with the beef burrito that's mostly making it into his digestive system, though there's a good bit of sauce smeared around his mouth. Dean takes another bite, and when he pulls the burrito away again, a piece of shredded lettuce is perched dangerously close to the edge of the tortilla. Sam watches it teeter, wondering if it'll fall. Dean takes another bite before it has a chance.

"You okay over there, Sam?" Dean asks with his mouth full.

Sam nods. "Fine."

"You're not eating."

Sam glances down at his own, untouched burrito. He forces himself to take a bite, waggling the evidence in his brother's direction. Dean rolls his eyes and finishes off the rest of his. He crumples up the wrapper and tosses it at Sam.

"You're also not listening to anything I'm saying. Don't you want to know about the case?"

Sam stares at the trees blurring along the roadside. "Already read the article you found."

"Yeah, but what about my expert observations and theories about said article?"

"Not entirely interested, to tell you the truth." Sam takes another tentative bite of burrito. It's better than their usual. Actually tastes like parts of it were grown in the earth.

"Well aren't you grumpy," Dean says.

Sam narrowly avoids socking his brother in the face. Probably the only thing that stops him is that Dean is behind the wheel. "Yeah, I am," he says instead. "Maybe because we should be focusing on other things at the moment. Namely, how to avoid that little deadline coming up in, what is it now, three months?"

"Three and a half," counters Dean. "Don't be a drama queen."

"I'm serious."

"So am I." Dean turns earnest eyes in Sam's direction. "We have nothing on Bela or the Colt or the dick who holds my contract. Bobby's been working on it, and when he has something, he'll tell us. But until then, I hear Arizona's really nice this time of year. Oh, and people are dying, so we should probably save them while…." Dean tapers off, the unspoken _while we can_, ringing out loud and clear inside the silence.

They're four hours from Phoenix.

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* * *

"Not the worst place to die, I guess."

Sam glares at his brother. The sun has long since set and the stars are barely visible beneath a thin sheen of clouds. They're standing outside Dino's Arcade, lined on either side of a small strip by a sushi restaurant with a dragonfly painted on the front window and an eyebrow-threading studio, all closed down for the night.

Dean ignores his brother's expression, stepping up to the glass of the arcade to peek in at the array of unplugged arcade games and machines. "I mean, there are worse ways to go out than playing Galaga."

_Yeah, like being torn apart by hellhounds_, Sam feels like screaming. But he doesn't. Instead, he casts a look around, drops to one knee beside the door to Dino's, and picks the lock.

The pair walk into the arcade and make a beeline for the complicated matrix of caution tape circling a darkened machine with the words "_Desolation Dunes"_ scrawled across the side in bright, green graffiti. A hand-written "Out of Order" sign rests against the giant, black screen.

"Brings back memories," Dean comments.

Sam's face scrunches in confusion. "Old motel pin-ball machines?"

"Well that too, I guess." Dean gestures to the mess in front of them. "I was talking about the sign and the tape."

"We've been to a million crime scenes like this, man," Sam says, trying not to let any impatience seep into his voice. He's been finding it difficult lately. For a while, letting Dean's mind and mouth and inhibitions run wild had seemed like the best course of action. Regardless of the fact that there was no way in hell Dean was going to - well, Hell- Sam still figured Dean deserved a bit of a break from it all. But now they have three months. Three and a half. Whatever.

Sam's not so inclined to indulge Dean's constant frolics down memory lane anymore. Nostalgia can be dangerous. It sounds too much like giving up.

"Yeah but...you remember Sycamore High?" Dean asks, still on his tangent. "It was in Massachusetts, I think."

"The one with the bathroom that was always flooding?" Sam asks, barely focusing on the question. He examines "_Desolation Dunes_," running his hands over the machine, searching for clues. He can hear the wide grin in Dean's next words.

"I guess I never told you, huh?"

"Told me what?" Sam inches around the back of the machine, checking the outlet. There's nothing suspicious about any of it. He comes back around to the front and lifts up the "Out of Order" sign, staring at the black screen beneath it.

"The bathroom never flooded," Dean says. "Becca Hilt and I just needed somewhere we wouldn't be disturbed."

Sam stops his perusal long enough to cast his brother an incredulous look. "Hold on...are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"Sammy, you give me an out of order sign and some caution tape and I can have sex practically anywhere."

"Unbelievable," Sam growls, shaking his head. He bends down to examine the floor- a dark splotch of what must be blood has been pressed deep into the carpeting next to the game. "Any other revelations I should know about?"

Dean's brow furrows and he gets serious- that horrible wistfulness that colors so much of what he says nowadays. "I guess I'd have to think about it. I'm sure there were things me and Dad never told you. Stuff you didn't need to know when you were young." Sam turns away from the bloodstain to examine his big brother. Dean smiles down at him. Yep, definitely wistful. "All grown up now, huh Sammy?"

"Sure," Sam concedes. _Doesn't mean you can just _leave_ me, _he thinks. _Doesn't mean I don't need you anymore. _

Something must show on his face, because Dean lowers his eyes and clears his throat. "Okay, so what do we got?"

Sam refocuses, gesturing to the stain. "Well according to the police report, the owner of the arcade was out of town- he left one of his employees, Cindy, to close up for the night. But Cindy was friends with our victim, Jasper Mullins, so she let him stay late to finish his game while she cleaned up in the back. She heard a weird noise, ran back to where she'd last seen Jasper..."

"...and he was gone?" Dean finishes.

"Nothing but a bloodstain."

Dean bends down to examine the stain as Sam had. He straightens back up. "Not enough to be fatal. Not by itself." He raises his eyebrows slyly. "So you wanna hear my theory now?"

Sam grimaces. "Please don't say…"

"Jumanji, dude. It's Jumanji."

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Despite Dean's earlier comment, Arizona is _not_ nice this time of year. It's too freakin' hot, and the AC in their motel room is crappy enough that Sam's t-shirt is sticking to both him and the chair he's sitting in. The only reason he's not entirely upset about that fact is because finally, hours after crappy takeout and a bunch of dead-ends, he might have something.

"Dean, check this out," he says, gesturing to the articles he's pulled up on his laptop. Dean gets up from where he's been sitting on the bed closest to the door, cradling Dad's journal. Sam has a sneaking suspicion he'd been scanning it without much purpose; just running his fingers over John's familiar handwriting. Just missing him. Sam can't really blame his brother. He'd never admit to doing the same, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

"What am I looking at?"

"Okay, so we've checked everything, right? Violent deaths at the arcade, this Cindy girl, the missing owner. And yes, before you ask, I did look into this "_Desolation Dunes"_ game to see if there was something fishy there."

"And you found out that Robin Williams played the game when he was a little kid and then got sucked…"

"Dean, shut up for a second. Look."

Dean squints at the screen, mouthing the words as he reads. "I still don't know what I'm looking at."

"What if it wasn't about the arcade? Or even Jasper?" Sam says. "What if it was about _any_ kind of game?"

Dean skims over the headlines again: "_Underground Poker Ring Exposed After Prominent Member Disappears." "Blind Date Gone Wrong: Foul Play Suspected in Missing Teen Case." "Husband Says Wife Vanished 'Into Thin Air' After Snagging Triple Word Score." _

"Wait," Dean snorts. "You're saying there's something out there that's punishing people for playing Scrabble?"

Sam bites his lip. "Maybe, yeah."

"Okay. First of all, that's stupid and insane. Second of all, what does the blind date one have to do with the pattern?"

"Well I was thinking: what if it's not just actual, physical games? Maybe it's mental games, too." Sam leans back in his chair, shivering a little when he feels a bead of sweat sliding from the nape of his neck down along the length of his back. He glares grudgingly at the barely-functioning AC unit.

Dean straightens and spins away from the laptop, rubbing a hand along his forehead. "Gotta hand it to you Sammy, you've really lost your marbles this time. And apparently, so have all the Mancala players of the world."

"What?" Sam laughs.

"What?" Dean echoes innocently.

Sam smirks at his brother. "Remember when you stole one so we could play when Dad was gone? We must've carried that game around in the car for years."

"_Stole_ is such a strong word, Sammy," Dean smiles back. That infuriatingly wistful look touches Dean's eyes again, but then he catches Sam looking at him and clears his throat. "Okay, so if this...whatever this thing is is targeting people who play games, why don't we just pull out a deck of cards and have ourselves a few rounds of Texas Hold 'Em?"

Sam tilts his head a little, thinking. "That's...actually not a terrible idea. Except what if it's not just a spirit? So far I can't find anything linking the victims. What if it's something we don't know how to kill?"

Dean gestures to the weapons bag propped against the wall. "I'm sure there's something in our arsenal that'll do the trick."

"And you're willing to take that risk?"

Dean shrugs. He moves in the direction of a different bag- the beat up duffle sitting on the floor beside his bed. He pulls out a deck of playing cards from the side pocket, plops back onto the mattress, opens the pack and starts shuffling. "I'll play Solitaire. That way there's no risk."

Sam stares at his brother.

"You know what I mean, Sammy." Dean lines up a row of seven cards, face down.

"I really, really don't."

Dean rolls his eyes and keeps dealing.

Sam twists further around in his chair to get a clear look at his brother. "Dude, seriously. Wait. Wait until I've done a little more digging, here."

"Or we could do it the fun way."

Frustration once again threatens to seep out of every individual hair on Sam's sweaty head, but he reins it in. He exhales slowly, and then he closes his laptop and stands up from the desk. He walks to the weapons bag and pulls out a shotgun, checking the chamber for the salt rounds he knows will be there. He cocks it.

"Sheesh. A little overdramatic, don't you think?" Dean asks, moving his Queen of Hearts to settle beneath the King of Spades.

"Better than watching you get snatched by some ghost with a vendetta against board games. And I know if I try to stop you from playing, you'll just sneak out to the parking lot to play later or something equally stupid."

"You're not wrong," Dean concedes as he plays, his fingers moving swift and sure and almost elegantly, even though the cards are old and worn. Sam contemplates for a moment and then drags the entire weapons bag over to his own bed and sits down, shotgun still in hand. He watches Dean. And he thinks.

He wonders if Dean would ever _really_ contemplate sneaking off. Past the parking lot and into the night. He pictures a day that can never be allowed to exist: Dean's last day. He sees Dean close the motel room door quietly behind him, pictures him walking away so Sam wouldn't have to see. Sam has always been the one to walk away, but this time it's Dean with the ticking clock. Whether Dean wants to go or not, it still feels like he's leaving. Drifting just a little bit further every day.

It won't happen that way. Sam would never let it. But sometimes when it's late and the motel room is dark and Dean is sleeping in the bed beside his and he is breathing soft and deep, Sam will let himself doubt. Sam will try to wrap his mind around a world without his brother.

He never gets very far.

Dean jabs his fist into the air and moves one, final card into place. He's won, naturally.

Sam tenses where he sits, shotgun resting on his lap in a way that only looks casual. Dean starts another game. Sam watches.

And nothing comes. No spirit. No monster. No devil-adjacent-walrus.

Two days later, Sam and Dean will find out that twenty-year-old Jasper Mullins had been involved with a gang in Central City. They'd come for him at Dino's Arcade, hitting him over the head with the butt of a gun and dragging him into the trunk of a 1991 Hyundai Excel. Apparently they'd forgotten about him for a few hours too long.

He'd overheated.

The other newspaper headlines Sam had dug up online ended up having equally mundane explanations. Members of underground poker rings _do_ tend to piss off the wrong kind of people, after all. Blind dates can take sinister turns. And sometimes, wives play Scrabble with their husbands just to get them drunk, wait until they fall asleep, and leave them to run off with their next-door neighbor.

People are still dying in Phoenix, but it's not because of any of the things they can stop.

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"You're thinking pretty hard over there, Sam," Dean says softly. They're packing up the motel room and getting ready to move on. Sam had suggested Bobby's, but Dean is convinced he's found a case in Vegas involving casino-invading-zombies, so that's where they'll go. Sometimes Sam thinks it's almost funny that he honestly believes he has any pull when it comes to this stuff. Other times he wants to scream. Loud. It feels like he's nothing more than the beam of Dean's flashlight; zipping back and forth, steered only by the flick of his brother's wrist.

"Sammy?"

Sam folds his last pair of socks into his duffle and zips it shut. He glances up at his big brother and raises an eyebrow.

"What's wrong?" Dean asks.

_I don't know how to stop this, _Sam thinks.

"It's too damn hot here," Sam says.

He slams the motel room door a little too hard on his way out and thinks of how Hell is probably hotter.


End file.
